Mexico announces arrest of powerful drug kingpin

A top leader of the Caballeros Templarios drug cartel was apprehended Monday amid a federal anti-crime offensive in the western state of Michoacan, Mexico's No. 2 official said.

Government Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong announced the arrest at a meeting with officeholders of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Though Osorio Chong did not provide a name, Radio Formula identified the man in custody as Dionicio Loya Plancarte.

In 2009, the Mexican government offered a reward of 30 million pesos ($2.3 million) for information leading to the apprehension of Loya Plancarte, then a member of the Familia Michoacana gang whose subsequent breakup led to the creation of the Templarios.

Osorio Chong informed PRI legislators that the detainee was one of the government's five "most important" targets in the Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar).